Junk Food Nation, Retro Cereal Week has arrived at my door!  After The Impulsive Buy reviewed 2001 Kellogg’s Homer’s Cinnamon Donut Cereal 2001, Rodzilla tackled Cheerios MillenniOs, and Food Junk covered Bill & Ted’s Excellent Cereal from 1991, it is now my turn to handle Day 4.  Presenting: 1988 “New” Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal, Glazed Style! *cue applause* Yes Yes, thank you.

1988 “New” Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal, Glazed Style: The Money Shot

1988 “New” Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal, Glazed Style jumped out at me on eBay.  First, the age – this cereal was made 24 years ago.  If wine and cheese get better with age, does processed corn meal cereal? Something tells me…no.  And there actually was a bidding war for this Corn Nuts style package of cereal!  I managed to snag it for under $20…yeah. These are my priorities in life.

The donut guy!

The front of this 1988 “New” Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal, Glazed Style, features the Dunkin’ Donuts Donut Guy! You don’t remember him?  Well, take a peak at this 1980’s commercial!

Still don’t recognize him? Wait, whaddya mean you were born in the 90’s???  This cereal is older than YOU are????  Good lord.

1988 coupons!

This 1988 “New” Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal, Glazed Style sample pack came with a coupon on the front for a whopping 30 cents off a box of normal Dunkin’ Donuts cereal.  WITH NO EXPIRATION DATE.  SCORE!  Now all I need to do is hop into my DeLorean and jet back to the 80’s to buy some of these.

By the way, anyone notice something funny about this cereal yet?  It’ll become more evident with the next photo…

Made by…WHO!?

1988 “New” Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal, Glazed Style, is made by RALSTON PURINA.  Ahem….RALSTON PURINA.  THE PUPPY CHOW, FANCY FEAST, AND ALPO COMPANY.  Oh, no.  This does NOT bode well for how this cereal will taste.  Ralston Purina was acquired by Nestle in 2001, where it exclusively makes pet food now.  So that’s good – “Hey, their cereal tastes like dog food, let’s just have them make dog food from now on!” ….is how I imagine their board meetings going.

Sample pack serving size

There is 1/2 serving of 1988 “New” Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal, Glazed Style, in this Corn Nuts-like bag. I have to tell you, I’m scared a little right now about opening this package.  Will there just be saw dust inside?

Semi-organic?

1988 “New” Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal, Glazed Style only has a few ingredients…so this is sort of like an all natural cereal?  Is that what I’m telling myself?  Should I eat these with milk?

OPENED PANDORA’S BOX!

I opened this pack of 1988 “New” Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal, Glazed Style, and drizzled the contents out.  There were a number of different shapes – figure 8s, Os, and balls.  This makes me feel like Purina was making all these cereals separately, and then took all the leftovers, drizzled them with sugar, and stuffed them in this bag.

Smell? Not much smell – pretty standard corn meal and wheat smell.  Slightly sweet.  Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad?

!!!!!

*crunch crunch* (well, this is sort of sweet…a little stale…OH THE HUMANITY!!! GAAAAH!!!!)

BLECH!

….AM….AM I STILL HERE!?  AM I ALIVE!? I barely made it out of that small mouthful of cereal intact.  My heart is racing, I’m sweating, and I’m pretty sure I just ingested something that will burst out of my chest in a few hours.  The horror.

Here’s what happened when I ate this 1988 “New” Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal, Glazed Style.  The crunch, at first, was standard.  I figured after 24 years this cereal would be plenty stale despite the seal of the bag.  And it was – but still had a normal, cereal crunchiness to it.

The initial flavor of the cereal was expected – it was plain glazed cereal taste.  Very similar to what you get when you eat Apple Jacks, or Froot Loops, etc.  Just crunch cereal with a bit of sugar.

The problem was as I chewed and began tasting the inside-and-all-around of this cereal, the flavor changed.  DRAMATICALLY.  *Warning for those with itchy gag reflexes* – All of sudden, it tasted like I was eating a mouthful of mold.  If it’s possible, my mouth TASTED like BO, and I thought that I could seriously infect myself by continuing the chew.  It tasted like rotted food, with a truly putrid taste that crawled up into my nostrils. My brain screamed SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT!

But no.  I’m an idiot, so while I was writhing on the ground, I swallowed that mouthful of spores.  I rested there, weeping softly to myself and making baby noises.  I was going to try a bite with milk to see if it would be better but FORGET IT.

This was a horrible idea.

PURCHASED AT: ebay.com

COST: $19.45

Thoughts? Please comment below (I always reply) or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Also, you can always email me at junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com. Let’s hang out.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy